“Wa’al,” said David with an air of meekness, “if I’ve done anythin’ I’m sorry for, I’m willin’ to be forgi’n.  Now, s’posin’——­”

“I’ve heard enough ‘bout s’posin’ fer one day,” said Mrs. Bixbee decisively, “unless it’s s’posin’ you finish your dinner so’s’t Sairy c’n git through her work sometime.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

After dinner John went to his room and David and his sister seated themselves on the “verandy.”  Mr. Harum lighted a cigar and enjoyed his tobacco for a time in silence, while Mrs. Bixbee perused, with rather perfunctory diligence, the columns of her weekly church paper.

“I seen a sight fer sore eyes this mornin’,” quoth David presently.

“What was that?” asked Aunt Polly, looking up over her glasses.

“Claricy Verjoos fer one part on’t,” said David.

“The Verjooses hev come, hev they?  Wa’al, that’s good.  I hope she’ll come up an’ see me.”

David nodded.  “An’ the other part on’t was,” he said, “she an’ that young feller of our’n was walkin’ together, an’ a putty slick pair they made too.”

“Ain’t she purty?” said Mrs. Bixbee.

“They don’t make ’em no puttier,” affirmed David; “an’ they was a nice pair.  I couldn’t help thinkin’,” he remarked, “what a nice hitch up they’d make.”

“Guess the’ ain’t much chance o’ that,” she observed.

“No, I guess not either,” said David.

“He hain’t got anythin’ to speak of, I s’pose, an’ though I reckon she’ll hev prop’ty some day, all that set o’ folks seems to marry money, an’ some one’s alwus dyin’ an’ leavin’ some on ’em some more.  The’ ain’t nothin’ truer in the Bible,” declared Mrs. Bixbee with conviction, “’n that sayin’ thet them that has gits.”

“That’s seemin’ly about the way it runs in gen’ral,” said David.

“It don’t seem right,” said Mrs. Bixbee, with her eyes on her brother’s face.  “Now there was all that money one o’ Mis’ Elbert Swayne’s relations left her last year, an’ Lucy Scramm, that’s poorer ’n poverty’s back kitchin, an’ the same relation to him that Mis’ Swayne was, only got a thousan’ dollars, an’ the Swaynes rich already.  Not but what the thousan’ was a godsend to the Scramms, but he might jest as well ‘a’ left ’em comf’tibly off as not, ‘stid of pilin’ more onto the Swaynes that didn’t need it.”

“Does seem kind o’ tough,” David observed, leaning forward to drop his cigar ash clear of the veranda floor, “but that’s the way things goes, an’ I’ve often had to notice that a man’ll sometimes do the foolishist thing or the meanest thing in his hull life after he’s dead.”

“You never told me,” said Mrs. Bixbee, after a minute or two, in which she appeared to be following up a train of reflection, “much of anythin’ about John’s matters.  Hain’t he ever told you anythin’ more ’n what you’ve told me? or don’t ye want me to know?  Didn’t his father leave anythin’?”